Donald McKenzie breaks it down for you

it’s a good read. here’s the last paragraph:

No single hedge fund seems currently to be in as pivotal a situation as LTCM was in 1998, but if the sector continues to shrink as fast as recent reports suggest it will, then the liquidation of trading positions is likely to lead to further violent price movements and market disruption, particularly where there are consensus trades. Paradoxically, though, the dramatic events of this autumn may lead, over the next few years, to an even greater role for the hedge funds that survive. With so many banks having been bailed out by the world’s taxpayers, they will be under considerable pressure from governments and regulators to concentrate on their core functions (receiving deposits, making loans to individuals and businesses, processing payments etc) and to reduce proprietary trading – that is the trading of financial instruments in order to make a profit for the bank, not to serve the needs of customers. Even banks that haven’t needed to be bailed out are moving in this direction: on 4 November, J.P. Morgan announced it was closing its global proprietary trading unit. As banks retreat from trading risky financial instruments, a potentially very profitable space will open up for those still prepared to do so, and hedge funds will step in to fill it.

hope that you had a great holiday weekend…

here’s a headline for you:

sick babies denied treatment due to a company patent on a dna gene

don’t know if it’s legit…but the title definitely caught my attention.